Download the audio version.Get my science column weekly as a podcast. *** As a science writer, I’ve written about a lot of things I’ve never expected to see up close. The outer planets of the solar system, for example. The bottom of the ocean. Nuclear reactors. I still haven’t reached Neptune, and I’ve never been …
Tag: science
Genetic modification of large animals just got easier
Efforts to genetically modify large animals have been hindered by the fact that the two methods currently used to effect it, somatic cell nuclear transfer or pronuclear injection, are costly, inefficient, difficult, and carry a risk of producing abnormal offspring. Now researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have successfully produced genetically …
An amazing compendium of visual illusions…
…can be found here. Well worth your time. You’ll never believe everything you see again. (Via Science Blog.)
A needle today keeps disease away
Download the audio version.Get my science column weekly as a podcast. **** Children, I have observed (and recall, for my own childhood has not yet faded into the misty depths of time) do not enjoy getting stuck with needles. And yet, getting stuck with needles is a part of growing up, because vaccinations, unpleasant as …
"Most research findings are false"?
That’s what John P. A. Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine, Ioannina, Greece, and Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies at Tufts University, believes, and has stated in an essay in PLoS Medicine: Simulations show that for most study designs and settings, it is more likely for a …
Which gets tangled more: curly hair or straight hair?
Science at last has the answer: straight hair. To learn which kind of hair truly is the snarliest, biophysicist Jean-Baptiste Masson at the Ecole Polytechnique in France had hairdressers count tangles for a week in the hair of 212 people—123 with straight hair and 89 with curls. Counting was conducted between 4 p.m. and 7 …
A trip to Mars in a week?
That’s the tantalizing possibility of something called the Photonic Laser Thruster, which was first demonstrated back in February. I don’t understand the science well enough to tell if it’s a load of hooey or not, but wow, I hope not. Because that kind of propulsion system might finally give us the solar system of Golden …
Faster-than-light communication a la Star Trek?
Maybe. Can’t be used for faster-than-light space travel, alas. On the other hand, the fact it involves “braneworld” scenarios makes me feel good about having my fictional FTL drive in my upcoming novel Marseguro operate in “branespace.” Speaking of which, I’ll probably post the opening chapter or two of Marseguro online in December or January, …
Break out the bubbly…the bubbly diet soda, that is
I was recently chided for drinking too much Diet Coke. “It may not have sugar, but it has aspertame, which is just as bad if not worse!” Well, “Pbbbbbbt!“: “A sweeping review of research studies of aspartame says there is no evidence that the non-nutritive sweetener causes cancer, neurological damage or other health problems in …
The political brain
Download the audio version.Get my science column weekly as a podcast. ***** I do hear tell that there may be an election or two in the offing in the next little while. There are those for whom such affairs are akin to blood sports. They identify so strongly with a particular party, or a particular …
Baptistina family fingered in mass killing
Sounds like a lurid headline from a New York tabloid, doesn’t it? Except in this case the “Baptistina family”refers to asteroids, and the victims were the dinosaurs.
On the premature popping-off of pop stars
Download the audio version.Get my column as a podcast. *** I recently spent a several months in the 1960s. Of course, about 40 years ago I spent a whole decade in the 1960s, but since I was a pre-teen the whole time I definitely fall into the “if you can remember the ’60s, you weren’t …
My latest live walk and vlog
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